My First Negative Review

Okay, here it is the very first negative review to be posted on my blog. Luckily I don’t very often continue to read books I’m not enjoying so there will be very few of these.

Sleep Tight – Laura Marie Altom

I tried I really, really tried but after 150 pages of torture I can’t take it anymore.

I know that seems dramatic but this has been my last week in my house.

Come home from stressful day at work and curl up on couch with pretty purple book that has such a fun sounding plot. Think to myself really Danielle it can’t be that bad you must of have been in a bad mood yesterday. Commence reading. Read 5 pages and unconsciously start grinding teeth. Get kicked in leg by hubby telling me to please stop making that god awful noise. Read 10 more pages sigh in exasperation and throw book across the room. Get told by hubby if I chip the paint on the wall one more time there will be no more book buying for a month.

So in an effort to keep my TBR pile from shrinking I’m officially giving up on this book. Just can’t do it anymore. So if your still with me at this point (and kudos to you if you are) I’ll tell you why.

First of all, the writing style way way way to descriptive and repetitive. Now I don’t have the book with me so I can’t give an exact quote but I can give you an idea. In the first 5 pages I’ve been told 3 or 4 times that hero’s mothers house has a very elaborate marble staircase… great I get it enough with the staircase. Of course that’s not it then I read a line like this (remember it’s not an exact quote but close enough to give you an idea). “… on the staircase that Archtectural Digest called the Architectural Bottecelli…” I KNOW IT”S A GRAND WONDERFUL ELABORATE STAIRCASE PLEASE STOP BEATING ME OVER THE HEAD WITH IT!!

Then later on the main character is described as striking a Rhett Butler pose at the staircase (yeah were back to the staircase).
This is fine I don’t mind allusions in my books but then please don’t describe in great detail what exactly that Rhett Butler pose entails down to the type of smirk the main character has on his face. If you don’t think anyone is going to know what your talking about please just don’t put it in there.

Second… the plot. This book starts out with the most absurd big misunderstanding I’ve ever read. Not to mention the main characters actions are just ridiculous. Belle (our heroine) no longer has money to leave under children’s pillows anymore. So to make extra money she accepts a job from our “hero’s” (and I use that term loosely) mother to pretend to be royalty at a party she’s throwing. During the party Boone (that’s our hero) overhears her talking on the phone while she is in the bathtub, which is in the bathroom, which is in her room (please someone explain what this creep was doing camping outside her bathroom door) and realizes her accent is fake. At this point he decides she must be scamming his wonderful innocent and naive mother and he’s going to put a stop to it. So what does he do??? Climbs into her bed right that makes sense. At which point Belle comes out of the bathroom gets undressed and into bed to take a nap (I’m not even going to ask what the guest of honour is doing taking a bath and a nap in the middle of her party). That whole time she is completely unaware of the 6 ft man laying in her bed waiting for her. She actually falls asleep and then wakes up when she rolls against him. So of course this leads to a confrontation where two people talk at one another rather than to one another that culminates in Boone putting his shirt on her and “kidnapping” her for six weeks until his mother goes on vacation. Belle in all her wonderful wisdom decides to go along with it because he’s offered to pay her at the end of the six weeks so she sits outside in his truck all night waiting for him while he goes back to the fancy party (sans shirt).

Okay, I have to stop now this review is already long enough as it is and I’m only done venting about the first 25 pages or so. Let me just say it doesn’t get better the hero stays a jerk, the heroine continues to act like an airhead, and the never ending descriptions just go on, and on and on (at least for 150 pages I just didn’t care after that).

Grade - DNF